FRANCESCA is a new giallo film from Argentinian brothers Luciano and Nicolás Onetti (Sonno Profondo, 2013). The film, which made its world premiere at SITGES Film Festival in October 2015, is now coming to home video courtesy of Unearthed Films and MVD Entertainment

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It’s been 15 years since the disappearance of little Francesca, daughter of the renowned poet and playwright, Vittorio Visconti. The community is stalked by a psychopath bent on cleaning the city of “impure and damned souls”. Moretti and Succo are the detectives in charge of finding the killer of these “Dantesque” crimes. Francesca has returned, but she is not be the same girl they once knew.

FRANCESCA has won several film festival awards including Best Director at Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre 2015, Best Production Design at Tabloid Witch Awards – Hollywood Investigator 2015, Weird Visions Award at Ravenna Nightmare 2015, Best Giallo Film at Crypticon Kansas City 2016, and Special Mention at Horrorant 2016 in Greece.

After a fashion model dies while having an after-hours abortion, someone is hell bent on revenge. The murders start with the doctor who performed the abortion and from there onto everyone associated with the Albatross modeling company. No one is safe.

While no one in this film is actually stripping for the killer, but that doesn’t mean there is no nudity. Strip Nude For Your Killer is packed full of nudity which mostly comes from genre favorite Edwige Fenech (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh). But this film is much more than that, it is a stylish giallo that also has some fantastic and violent kills. It also has one of my favorite killers in any giallo, dressed head to toe in black leather and wearing a black motorcycle helmet armed with only a single switchblade and vengeance!

The film has a reputation for being sleazy, but I don’t see it as that. To me, Bianchi (Burial Ground) has made a beautiful film that may have a few strange and sleazy characters, but that doesn’t warrant the entire film to be called “sleazy” or “trashy.” I feel that Strip Nude For Your Killer is a smart and superb giallo.

Blue Underground has done wonders with the transfer and sound quality on this release. It looks and sounds absolutely amazing. Not to say their DVD looked bad in anyway, because it didn’t, but it does blow my German BD and Shameless DVD out of the water! This new transfer is from the original uncut and uncensored camera negative. Extra features include Strip Nude For Your Giallo – interviews with actress Solvi Stubing and co-writer Massimo Felisatti which was carried over from the DVD release. We also get the Italian and international trailers and a poster/still gallery.

I recommend that you upgrade your DVD, the BD will cost you less than $20.00 on DiabolikDVD.com and everyone needs more Edwige Fenech in high definition! This has been in my top ten giallo films since the first time I saw it. Those of you who may be unfamiliar with this genre of film should educate yourself a little since we are in somewhat of a giallo resurgence. With films out there like Amer, Francesca¸ Tulpa and Black Aria just to name a few. I encourage you to watch Strip Nude For Your Killer and the tons of other giallo’s from the seventies!

Over all this is an exceptional release for an amazing film. My only wish would be for some more special features.

DEEP RED is my absolute favorite horror film ever made. If you listen to Exorcast then you already know this. I wasn’t overly impressed with Arrow’s packaging with this release but I will get into that a little later.

With every DEEP RED release I always hope they get better and better in every aspect. Arrow’s previous blu-ray release wasn’t the greatest. It had the awesome window box slipcase and artwork, but the sound and transfer wasn’t spectacular, which was the case with most of the early Arrow releases. Never the less I still bought them all! Aside from the HELLRAISER and VIDEODROME sets this was the first Arrow UK release I have picked up in a very long time. The Arrow US stuff has all looked amazing which gave me some hope.

So to start off Arrow gave both the international and the directors cuts of the film new 4K transfers and they do look amazing. Normally on older films I don’t care as much about the transfer because sometimes I prefer the grime, but I must say this film has never, ever looked better in my eyes. I have fallen in love with DEEP RED all over again. The picture looks perfect. It was like seeing it for the first time. The black gloves, the overly red blood, everything was perfect. The sound has also been improved over their previous release. I just couldn’t resist not to crank GOBLIN’s amazing score while watching the film. It even woke my son up in the middle of the night, bad parenting…maybe, but it was totally worth it. I have only watched the director’s cut but I can only imagine that the international cut looks and sounds just as good.

This already may be my favorite release of the year and it will be hard to top in my eyes. As I said before though I was not impressed with the packaging. Arrow has done some great packaging recently with those hard, sturdy slip cases. I feel like if any film deserves something like that, it’s DEEP RED. That is my opinion though. Most of those releases have been double features, but VIDEODROME got that release from Arrow, damnit.

This release went out of print before its street date. It sold out on preorders alone. That’s pretty intense, but you can still snag it for a decent price on eBay for around $75.00.

A full break down of the special features on the set are;

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of two versions of the film

Original Italian soundtrack in DTS-HD MA mono 1.0 and lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, and original English soundtrack in DTS-HD MA mono 1.0*

Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film and an archive piece by critic Alan Jones, illustrated with original archive stills

For collectors this is a must have! I would absolutely pay $100.00 for this in a heartbeat if I had too. For me it’s a great release and a must own.

So I am not going to go into an actual film review, because we’ve talked about this film on the show numerous times and if your visiting this review you have probably listened to Exorcast before and know I have a major hard-on for all things Argento. While TENEBRAE is one of Argento’s finest films I feel like we have all seen it before and hopefully all love it.

That being said we have been waiting for Synapse to release this beauty for quite some time now, maybe not as long as their SUSPIRIA release but this will hold us over in the meantime. Synapse took their time to bring us one beautiful transfer. They supervised the color correction and restoration from the original uncut negative. The film itself has never looked better. This makes my seventh copy of TENEBRAE and my second on blu-ray. As much as I love Arrow’s UK blu-ray release for the packaging, the transfer and sound isn’t spectacular. Synapse took it to the next level, the entire film is damn near crystal clear. Every drop of blood is the perfect shade of rosso. Even the chase scene with the guard dog looked great and typically that’s the scene that looks the darkest on all of the previous releases.

Ok, so you get the point. The release is great and worthy of all of your collections. This blu-ray release also includes; the feature-length documentary, Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of The Giallo, original UNSANE end credits, an alternate opening credit sequence and the Japanese Shadow theatrical trailer. We are also treated to a bonus audio CD with the original motion picture soundtrack that contains some songs not on the original release.

Final Thoughts: This is an outstanding release and I am very happy it received the treatment it deserved from Synapse. TENEBRAE will set you back just under $50.00 (US) and you can get it from www.diabolikDVD.com For me it is hands down a must own and a contender for release of the year in my opinion.

Happy Holidays from us here at Exorcast! This is our last show of 2014. It’s been a good year, lots of changes have happened to the show and I am happy that you guys still listen! This week Chuck and I are once again reunited with the News Finder General and together we tackle a few films including the strangest Christmas film we’ve ever seen. First up we have The Nostril Picker (a.k.a. The Changer) from Massacre Video and Sonno Profondo (a.k.a. Deep Sleep) a new artsy giallo that went under the radar. Finally we have a strange little holiday film called Blood Beat that has rednecks, deer hunting and a ghost samurai in it. I am not kidding. Shit’s strange. With all the deer, trees and rednecks though, Chuck feels right at home with it. So enjoy and thanks for continuing to support us over the years. We will be back in January with our best of show for 2014!

Also, if you would like to help the #ReleaseMORBID cause here is the image that you can post all over you social media platforms and if you are a reviewer stick it on your blog!

This week it’s a short one, but a good one… maybe. The guys and I tackle Blue Underground’s upcoming Blu-ray release of Michele Soavi’s STAGEFRIGHT available on 9/23/14 and Bryon Blakey’s new indie PMS Cop from Fullmoon Feature’s and their newly vamped Wizard label. Somehow we also have a discussion about fast food. I am not sure how or why this happened.

This week I am joint by The Newsfinder General and the come back from the one, the only, the pumpkin faced cocksucker himself…Vincent Renfield. We are also joined by Dr. Jimmy Terror a.k.a. James Harris from – http://www.docterror.com – to help kick off Italian Horror Week III on his site by reviewing some Italian horror films! We decided to go for some of the less talked about films, so first up is Mario Bava’s Shock (Beyond The Door II), Francesco’s Barilli’s The Perfume of the Lady in Black and the newly released (but not in the USA) Tulpa (Perdizioni mortali) directed by Federico Zampaglione! We also take a look at the newest released from One Way Static Records with Roberto Donati’s score for Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox (Make Them Die Slowly).